


The Routine

by veeagainst



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 02:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/999640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veeagainst/pseuds/veeagainst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange how after fourteen years without war, the rules of these frantic mornings come back and they fall into the old patterns as if they never left them.  No one says, “I love you;” no one says, “Be careful.”  They do not kiss, or indicate that they might be saying goodbye forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Routine

**Author's Note:**

> I'm proud of this one. Please comment if you enjoy!

            There’s a bang, and a muttered, “Fuck,” and Sirius is cut off from the world of sleep.  He rolls over in bed, reaching for Remus, and finds only piles of warm blankets. 

            “Moony?”

            A pause, and then, “Go back to sleep, Padfoot.”

            Sirius shoves the blankets away from his face and sits up, blinking into the darkness.  The air in the room is very cold.  “Moony, why are you…”  He fumbles for his wand and lights one of the candles suspended in sconces above the bed.  In the sudden warm light, he can see Remus bent over, leaning against the bureau with one hand, trying to put on a sock. 

            “Sit down, fool, you’re about to fall over,” Sirius says mildly, rubbing his eyes and ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

            “M’fine,” Remus grunts, yanking on the sock and wobbling about on his other foot.  “I can put on my bloody socks.”

            “Just sit down on the bed!”

            Remus hops over and sits down, his head bent and the lines of his back curved in tension.  Sirius puts a hand on Remus’s shoulder and says, “Get a letter?”

            Remus nods to the desk and Sirius summons the crisp piece of parchment into his hand.  It is very small and the handwriting in the brief note is familiar in the same way that scattered fragments of a recurrent dream can be.  Sirius reads the order and then carefully folds the parchment. 

            “Socks on, Moony?” he asks, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and casting about on the floor for his slippers and dressing gown.  “Bugger, it’s cold out here.”

            “You don’t have to get up,” Remus protests, but the words are barely out of his mouth before he is standing and fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, waiting for Sirius to step in and fix them.  Remus has always had a problem with getting the buttons right on his shirts; he always winds up either one up or one down, and it has been Sirius’s job, since their first year at school, to fix it before he rushes out the door with it all a mess.

            Sirius never asks how Remus got his shirt buttoned for thirteen years without him.

            “I’ll make you some tea,” he says now, finishing the shirt and reaching for his wand.

            “Don’t have time,” Remus says, but his hands are already out and accepting the steaming mug that has poured from the tip of Sirius’s wand.  He sips at it, watching Sirius over the rim, and Sirius hesitates and watches his eyes.

            “You’re tired.”

            “It’s five in the bloody morning.”

            “Only two days after the moon…”

            “Doesn’t matter.  You read the note.”

            Sirius frowns and brushes Remus’s hair off his forehead.  Half of it is sticking up from having been slept on; the other half is stuck to his face.  “Seems like you’re getting there after the fact.”

            “Clean up,” Remus says briefly, and Sirius doesn’t have to ask because he remembers the last war.

            “How’s the tea?”

            “Burning.  My tongue.”

            “Poor Moony.”

            “Shh.”  Remus pretends to punch Sirius’s stomach and winds up with his arm wrapped around Sirius’s waist.  “Tea’s good, but I have to go.”

            “Sure,” Sirius says, tightening his dressing gown.  “Take a jumper, it’s cold.”

            “Yes, mother.”

            “And you might want to put on some shoes.”

            “Minor details,” Remus murmurs.  Sirius accepts the half-empty cup of tea and watches Remus crouch down and locate his shoes beneath the bed. 

            “Any idea how long this will…”

            “Of course not.”

            Sirius nods and sips at the tea.  The action is mechanical and he doesn’t taste it; his stomach is in knots.  “You going to do something about your hair?”

            Remus finishes doing up his laces and stands.  “I like people to know that I got out of bed before the sun was up to solve their problems.”

            Sirius smoothes down the rest of Remus’s hair and says, “You’d best be going.”

            Remus nods, takes a deep breath, and says, “I don’t suppose that either of us is going to bring up the overwhelming sense of déjà vu…”

            “I wasn’t going to mention it, but now that you have…”

            Remus takes Sirius by the hand and leads him out of the room and down the stairs, to the front entryway.  Strange how after fourteen years without war, the rules of these frantic mornings come back and they fall into the old patterns as if they never left them.  No one says, “I love you;” no one says, “Be careful.”  They do not kiss, or indicate that they might be saying goodbye forever.  Remus does not turn back from the walkway out of Grimmauld Place and look at Sirius, a cold and slumped silhouette dwindling in the doorway, his face obscured by the puffs of his breath in the frigid air.  The last thing that Remus says, as he is tugging open the door and not looking at Sirius, is, “Go back to bed, you lazy dog.”

            And Sirius says, “I’ll try to think of you while I’m nuzzling up under the warm covers, but I can’t make any guarantees.”

            Then Remus is receding away from him, out into the rain-slick street, and, as always, Sirius wants to chase after him and fling his arms around him and beg him not to go, but that isn’t what soldiers do, so he slams the door shut and has a good screaming match with his mother’s portrait about his unnatural habits with unnatural creatures.

            Then he goes into the study to hold a book open on his lap and wait.


End file.
